The Story of Stuff or Where Stuff Comes From !

This is something I’ve always been curious about. Most people just take for granted, living in a consumer orientated society, that stuff is produced in factories by business for profits in an efficient and productive manner. Its “natural” and fundamental to the way we all live and necessary for the continuation of work, jobs and money in a country’s economy. But is this really the case?

Working in the IT industry I’ve always been concerned about the rapid turnover in computer equipment every 6 months to a year. I always considered it to be a part of technological innovation and obsolescence. And for awhile I was happy to be carried along with this trend. This applied to concepts of technology, learning and education too. Intel was always bringing out faster and new computer chips (hardware) while Microsoft was busy bringing out new and supposedly better versions of windows (software) too. However, I soon began to realise that something deeper was really at play here.
The Story of Stuff is an animated video compilation freely available over the internet which looks in “graphic” detail just how stuff is originated and produced to eventually end up in the hands of every day consumers like you and me. Its socially collectively and spiritually acknowledging of the global effects this system of production and consumption is having on the planet and its inhabitants (us and everything else!!!)

Story of Stuff, Full Version; How Things Work, About Stuff

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

Published by Kwamla

13 thoughts on “The Story of Stuff or Where Stuff Comes From !”

“…We’re not really broke — our public money has just been hijacked. Our new film, The Story of Broke, shines a light on the dumb choices our elected so-called leaders are making with our money: handing out tax breaks for oil companies reaping record profits…”

The Overpopulation Myth is a Distraction from Our Real Problems: Poverty and War

The truth is that every man, woman and child in the whole world could have about 1 acre of land to themselves and it would all fit into a land mass the size of North America, with the rest of the world completely unoccupied.

Total land area of North America (including Central America and the Caribbean): 24,486,305 km² (6,050,697,738 acres)

Average population density of North America: 21.0 persons per square kilometer (11.77 acres per person)

Total population of Earth 6,553,289,000

Average population density of Earth: 44.0 persons per square kilometer (5.62 acres per person)

6,050,697,738 acres of North America / the total world population of 6,553,289,000 = 0.93.. acres per person (not families mind you, that would take up less land mass)

Most people really don’t understand how the modern world we live in today has made us ALL so toxic! We ingest directly and indirectly so many different forms of man-made artificially created chemicals many of which are untested and unknown for their accumulative and combined effects on our bodies. Personal Cosmetics being just one example of this.

But there is an insidious and not so widely known publicized aspect to this global toxicity phenomenon. It is certainly no accident that our planet has become so toxic. This includes the air, water and food we breathe, drink and eat as well as our environment (see Chemtrails). That aspect is to prevent and control all Human Ascension on this planet before 2012

“…The Story of Cosmetics, released on July 21st, 2010, examines the pervasive use of toxic chemicals in our everyday personal care products, from lipstick to baby shampoo. Produced with Free Range Studios and hosted by Annie Leonard, the seven-minute film by The Story of Stuff Project reveals the implications for consumer and worker health and the environment, and outlines ways we can move the industry away from hazardous chemicals and towards safer alternatives. The film concludes with a call for viewers to support legislation aimed at ensuring the safety of cosmetics and personal care products..”

“….It’s fundamentally important ecological functions, our poor understanding of it as well as our destructive relationship with it. It is so essential to life and thus to us, that our survival is directly dependent on our understanding and protection of it!…”

There’s a world of opportunity to re-think and re-design the way we make stuff.

“…’Re-Thinking Progress’ explores how through a change in perspective we can re-design the way our economy works – designing products that can be ‘made to be made again’ and powering the system with renewable energy. It questions whether with creativity and innovation we can build a restorative economy…”

The reason why it works in nature in the first place is because its based on co-operation and a shared appreciation of everyone’s and everything’s contribution towards a collective whole – The Earth…The planet we all inhabit.

Our present world economic systems run counter to this principle which is why, although they may seem to work in the short term, they fail miserably (as they are now) in the long term. They work for a privileged few when they could be working to privilege everyone.

This is built into the belief that inequality and injustice is the natural order of things…of life. – Its not! So in re-thinking any true circular economic system we must first change this unnatural, unreal, indoctrinated and inherited belief structure.

Drawing the distinction between cooperative invention and production versus hostile, secretive, competitive production. This is in direct contrast to the ugliness of the modern human landscape which has grown out of that transition to a world created of total competition, profit and greed.

There are alternatives…We simply need to be able and allowed to try them…

How Global Science, particularly the Development and Experimentation of Secret Technologies, is Impacting Life on our Planet

“…Dr. Nick Begich has been pursuing independent research in science and politics for most of his adult life. Dr Begich received a doctorate in traditional medicine from the Open International University for Complimentary Medicines in November 2004. Dr. Begich the eldest son of US Congressman Nick Begich Sr. and political activist Pegge Begich.

During this interview conducted by prisonplanet.tv,

Dr. Begich talks about many controversial science experiments, including HAARP, Mind Control technology, compartmentalization within the science community, and how these technologies, which might be used for the progress of all mankind, is currently controlled by secret military industrial complex interests putting all of humanity at risk.

Dr. Begich talks about Alaska as a strategic location that can be utilized by the United States as way to stimulate the economy and put America back on the map as the world’s economic leader.

Finally, Dr. Begich spends some time telling us his perspective of the plane crash that killed his father, Congressman Nick Begich sr. and US House Majority leader, Hale Boggs. Dr. Begich recalls out the historical election that faced the U.S.

Immediately after this tragic plane crash. An almost forgotten event in American history, one that not only changed the course of U.S. history, but the history of the world as well…”

This is an very informative video on why Energy dependence on traditional fuels such as oil, gas and coal are unsustainable. Even the alternative green energy fuels are not the answer. The whole Western economy and the products its built on are derived from fossil fuels. Alternative unlimited and abundant energy sources do exist but the present oil dependence system has to be broken up and abandoned first…

‘There’s No Tomorrow ‘ is a half-hour animated documentary that deals with resource depletion, energy, and growth. Inspired by the pro-capitalist cartoons of the 1940s, the film is an introduction to the energy dilemmas facing the world today.

[Please ignore the false introductory conventional history story but this isn’t that important as the main premise (unsustainable economic growth) of the documentary is…]

“…For our own individual sanity, the huge lesson for us is to learn how to reconnect. The bigger question is if it’s possible for economic growth to continue indefinitely without destroying the planet? Anybody who thinks that it’s crazy to say we can do without growth the onus is on them to prove that we can live with it. If you fast forward and think what future generations will be ashamed of, one of the things will be how we allowed poverty to exist on this planet for so long when we could have easily ended it…”Connected!

This is an interesting film with a serious attempt to address many of the global economic issues we face on a daily basis. It also speaks to a fundamental and absolute law of our reality – WE ARE ALL CONNECTED!

What this means simply is what effects one ultimate;y effects another. This is an undeniable FACT we ignore at our own peril When we realise this simple FACT we begin to appreciate and accept that we are all personally responsible for the world we witness and experience around us.

We can either take that responsibility seriously and apply it to all of our daily and individual actions or we can disregard it and continue to complain and believe it is the responsibility of others. ITS NOT!!!

We are ALL Sovereign Beings and it is up to us all individually and collectively to make and realise the changes we say and believe will benefit ALL of society. Not just the few or the majority but EVERYONE!!!

“…Of all the innumerable beliefs and hypotheses that make up our contemporary industrial perspective on life there is one that is dominant and very frequent. That’s the assumption that we are disconnected, from everyone and everything. This belief configures basically all our ideas and actions. There’s a crucial fallacy that we are separate. But, if there is only one, then whatever I do to you I’m actually doing it to myself, my family, and my children.

Spiritual attitude has long instructed that partition is actually an illusion. However, in the past, the narrative that’s been exchanged in the modern world, whether consciously or unconsciously, has been that the world functions like a huge machine made of separate parts like a big clock. For the past four centuries, the scientific established practice has been trying to take the clock apart, and figure out how it functions, so we can use it for our own ambitions.

This rigid aspect meant that instead of realizing the relation between things, we were analyzing and taking apart those very same things. So, what developed was kind of disintegrated view of the natural world. And we became entranced with the ability that came out of this technology, and we lost our relations to each other; we lost our connection to the enigma of the cosmos.

Although the modern worldview is superior on Earth, it’s valuable to identify that it’s not the only worldview. Traditional, native cultures are not so concentrated on “advancement”, rather they’re focused on their health and persistence of the community, and they see the interdependence of all things.

They try to recognize that we’re related to everything… to the animals, fish, plants, trees, birds, and even to the microorganisms. Indigenous people of the world have a particularly important role to play at this moment in history. We need them to come forward and explain how they see things.

Growth, growth, growth…we must have more economic growth! This is the mantra politicians of all persuasions continuously chant in unison. But what exactly does this mean? Economic growth is measured in terms of a countries GDP – its ability to produce stuff. What this simply means is the more stuff a country can produce the higher becomes its GDP and the greater becomes its economic growth factor. But many things can contribute to a countries GDP even wars, divorces and even funerals! These would all count as economic activity so could be included in GDP figures…

This is the big LIE and the fiction we are told day after day in the midst of recession and benefit cutbacks that we need to get producing more stuff to grow our economies.

Even though the evidence is clear simply increasing a countries GDP by producing more stuff does not magically transform the health, wealth and happiness of people – In fact the opposite could be shown to be true. So why do we never question this?

“…Enough Is Enough lays out a visionary but realistic alternative to the perpetual pursuit of economic growth—an economy where the goal is enough, not more. Based on the best-selling book by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill, the film explores specific strategies to fix the financial system, reduce inequality, create jobs, and more. Drawing on the expertise of Tim Jackson, Kate Pickett, Andrew Simms, Natalie Bennett, and Ben Dyson, Enough Is Enough is the primer for achieving genuine prosperity and a hopeful future for all…”

This is the other morally indefensible side of producing all that “Stuff” – Disposing of it all! Its no hidden FACT that a great proportion of the Western World’s electronic waste ends up in places like Africa and India where the businesses, machinery and expertise to process and recycle such hazardous material is not readily available. So why are such potentially harmful and frequently discarded wastage products arriving here?

“…Dumping electronic waste onto the developing world is a hazardous but profitable business…

Every year, Americans upgrade their TVs, cell phones, computers and other electronic devices at a breathtaking pace. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that the U.S. produces 300 million tons of electronic waste annually. About 80 percent of that ends up in domestic landfills or is “recycled” overseas in hazardous conditions.

…Disposing of e-waste legally and responsibly has been a political and a practical headache for years. And a growing appetite for consumerism around the world is only fueling the problem…”

But its not just America (US) who is responsible as this report from SBS Dateline shows. Countries from the other side of the world like Australia too are involved using loop holes in regulations to illegally transport and dump this type of waste.

This is what attempts to depopulate the world through vaccines and diseases like Ebola are really about. An attempt by minority wealthy white elites to prevent this natural occurrence. Of course what they refuse or don’t want to acknowledge (due to false white supremacy) is that Africa and its peoples are directly related to their own continuing existence on this planet!

“…The future of humanity is increasingly African,” says a report by the UN children’s agency to be issued on Tuesday, based on revised population forecasts that reveal an unprecedented demographic shift this century…”